Power generation still 4,439.5mw

Power generation has hit 4,439 megawatts, the government said yesterday.It also announced its plan to surpass the promised 4,500mw by December.
The Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Power, Mrs Dere Awosika, denied that power generation had dropped by 1,000 mw as claimed in a report yesterday.

According to her, the current generation mark was attained on September 5. It has not reduced, she said.
In a statement yesterday, the ministry said: “The attention of the Ministry of Power has been drawn to a report alleging that power generation has dropped by 1,000megawatts.

“ The fact is that there is no iota of truth in the publication. At present, the peak generation has remained 4,439.5 megawatts. This peak status was gained on September 5 and since then, it has been steady.

“We have tried as much as possible to be transparent and provide relevant and accurate data. Our door remains open.”
According to Mrs Awosika, Minister of State for Power Darius Dickson Ishaku has assured Nigerians that the recent gains in the power generation “will not only be consolidated, but will be improved upon.”

Chairman of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) Dr. Sam Amadi told reporters yesterday in Abuja that there must be generation of 4,500 megawatt in the Multi-Year Tariff Order (MYTO) , as justification for a new tariff regime.
He explained that the 4500mw projected for December was an outcome of all the worst and best scenarios that could be experienced by the Transmission Company of Nigeria, generation companies and National Integrated Power Projects..
Amadi said in order to sound realistic, the commission pegged its benchmark at 4500mw instead of the 5000 mw projected by the Ministry of Power.

Amadi said: “The idea here is that gas to power would have also gone far. The idea here is that if you look at it from the 4500mw in the market, we are very sure that by December 2012 we would have been able to meet that projection. The idea here is that the generation capacity influences the tariff. If suddenly we have a windfall of 9,000 megawatts, we are going to reverse the tariff because the average cost is going to be lower for every consumer.

“So, let’s bear in mind that this is a day to day market. Before we got the projection, we got NIPP, we got TCN, we got the generation companies to give us their best and worst case scenario.
“But we took 4500mw and from hindsight it seems we were more accurate to take 4500mw. We already had improvement of 4,300 in the last two weeks. So it is possible we have improvement for the price that is being scheduled. But we expect to do better than 4500mw.”
He said the sector would witness a soaring power generation of 7000mw when the NIPPs would have harvested their inputs by next year.
That year, said the chairman, all the IPPs and NIPP that are now down would have been operating at full capacity.
Also yesterday, the Minister of State for power said Lagos is currently getting 1,124 megawatts supply of electricity which is about one quarter of the total electricity wheeled into the national grid.

He spoke at the inauguration of the Ikeja Forum for Electricity Consumers. He said the recognition of Lagos as the country’s commercial hub necessitated the high premium being placed on the state in the supply of power.

He said: “As at Monday, power delivery to Lagos alone is 1,124mw. This is because it is the commercial heartbeat of the nation. If I have to do anything, it has to be Lagos first, followed by Abuja and others.” The current power supply to the state is the highest in the history of the country, he added.

He said electricity supply has been on the increase because the Alaoji power plant, being built under the National Integrated Power Project (NIPP), will be synchronized into the national grid soon as two of its units are already fired.
Lagos State Governor Babatunda Fashola expressed concern about irregular power supply and customer complaints. He urged the Federal Government to ensure that necessary measures are taken to guarantee sustainable power supply in the country adding that it is the gateway to move from poverty to prosperity as power is critical to the success of other sectors of the economy.